Alexander H. Stephens

Alexander Hamilton Stephens (11 February 1812-4 March 1883) was the Vice President of the Confederate States of America from 22 February 1862 to 11 May 1865 during the American Civil War, as well as serving as Governor of Georgia from 4 November 1882 to 4 March 1883 (succeeding Alfred H. Colquitt and preceding James S. Boynton).

American politician
Alexander Hamilton Stephens was born in Crawfordville, Georgia, United States on 11 February 1812, and he was an avid reader as a youth. Stephens graduated from the University of Georgia at the top of his class, passing the bar in 1834 and becoming a successful lawyer in his hometown. Stephens became quite wealthy, buying land and slaves as his fortunes rose. From 1836 to 1841, he served in the State House of Representatives as an American Whig Party politician, and he served in the US House of Representatives from 1843 to 1859. While he was in the House, he opposed the Mexican-American War, and Associate Justice Francis H. Cone repeatedly stabbed Stephens during an argument about the extension of slavery at the Atlanta Hotel in 1848, nearly killing him. Stephens supported Zachary Taylor as president in 1848, and he supported the Compromise of 1850, although he disagreed with the lack of slavery in the newly-annexed territories of the Mexican Cession. In 1851, he became a Constitutional Union Party member, and he was elected as a US Democratic Party member in 1855 and 1857, adopting conservative views.

Vice President of the Confederacy


In 1861, Stephens was elected to Georgia's secession convention after the Confederate States of America was declared, and he voted in favor of leaving the United States. Stephens was chosen to serve as President Jefferson Davis' Vice President, and he was nicknamed "The Little Pale Star from Georgia" due to his sickly behavior. Stephens was friends with the US president Abraham Lincoln, a former Whig politician, and they met in February 1865 to discuss peace terms; while the meeting failed, President Lincoln decided to have Stephen's nephew released from a Union prison. On 11 May 1865, Stephens himself was captured at the end of the Civil War, and he was elected to the Senate after the war's end. In 1873, he entered the US House of Representatives as a Democrat, and he was elected Governor of Georgia in 1882. He died less than a year later at the age of 71.